Freedom????

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Smitty37

Passed Away Mar 29, 2018
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Joined
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Location
Milford, Delaware 19963
We like to think we are a free people --- but there was a time when we were a lot more free.

I was thinking today of some of the things I did that my kids couldn't do and my grandkids have never even given doing them a thought.

At 10 years of age and older, I could dig up a can of worms, take my old bamboo (or go cut a sapling if I didn't have a bamboo) pole, walk two or three miles alone to one of my favorite fishing holes and fish.

Also at 10 years of age I learned to shoot and how to properly care for and treat firearms.

If I wanted to swim there were at least half a dozen places I could go, no fences, no life guards, no need to ask permission we just went. btw, no one ever drowned. My kids had a pool but otherwise there was not many places they could have gone. My grandkids can't even think about swimming anywhere but in a properly supervised pool.

Ice skating in the winter on 6 different lakes, ranging is size from about 20 acres to about 150 acres, no permission needed - we just went. My kids had some exposure to that on a pond of about 3/4 acres.

If we wanted a ball game we got as many kids together as we could find and chose up sides - the two best players (and everybody knew who they were) did the choosing and the teams which might have from 5 to 8 players on a side would be pretty evenly matched. No umpires, no parents to make fools of themselves, mended broken wooden bats, taped up balls, half the kids had gloves and shared with those who didn't. We kept score but 5 minutes after the game ended no body cared who won, we had fun.
In the fall it was the same with football, if we were playing where the grass was soft we played tackle at the school the field was rocky with a lot of stones so we played touch there. No helmets, no padding, no referees, no parents to make fools out of themselves - no kick off tees, no goal posts, no extra points, and again we kept score but nobody really cared who won. Same method of choosing sides.

Compare that to now and tell me kids are free - they can't make a move without adult supervision right there along with all of the latest and greatest equipment, coaches, umpires and properly laid out and measured fields.

My kids could choose up sides for kickball only because we owned 14 acres of land and could let them mark off a spot to play. But, there were very few opportunities for pick-up fun games.

We started school when we were 6 years old (or close to it) and most of us went no more than 12 years (when I graduated about 25% went to college - mostly on their own nickel without a lot of financial help from their parents) and learned enough so we could get a job when we finished. Our parents were happy when we graduated because we'd now be able to help out for a few years until we "got married and settled down". At 17 I was contributing more to the household than it cost for found and services received. We were free, if we wanted to (and a few did) we could leave home, get a job and go back only when we felt like it. Now half the kids start "preschool" at 4 kindergarten at 5 then go to college for 4 or more years after high school and 1/3 are still at least partly dependent on their parents when they're 30. People dependent on their parents (or the government for that matter are not free).

If I am to be frank, I am so glad I was born 75 years ago rather than 75 days ago. I shudder to think of what it will be like for the poor kids being born now - I fear they'll never have a childhood.
 
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Well, LeRoy! You are spot on!

And for the record, I keep a couple of worm beds, a small thicket of cane growing on the property. I've also got some stones that can fabricate a hatchet big enough to cut a sapling to make a bow and arrow.

Fortunately, I live "at the beginning" of the Trail of Tears, so I can easily pick up enough "antique" arrowheads to put a tip on an arrow.

This ole boy will be the last to give up those freedoms.

Respectfully submitted.
 
avbill said:
what do you mean 4 years of college maybe 5; my son spent 17 years in college. 2 BA 2 MA & 2 PHD's and yes he has a job to boot!
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I have 6 kids and one did not finish college, 1 has only his BS, 4 have MS and 3 are still going for doctorates all are working full time as well so I do understand. I didn't get my own BS degree until I was 44 years old and it took me 16 years.
 
Smitty: We are off each other about 4 years, and you don't know how often I have those same thoughts. Was bird and rabbit hunting "alone" at about age 10 or 11. I guess I have those thoughts most often when I look into the eyes of my great grandkids! It's sad, very sad! :frown:



Smitty37 said:
We like to think we are a free people --- but there was a time when we were a lot more free.

I was thinking today of some of the things I did that my kids couldn't do and my grandkids have never even given doing them a thought.

At 10 years of age and older, I could dig up a can of worms, take my old bamboo (or go cut a sapling if I didn't have a bamboo) pole, walk two or three miles alone to one of my favorite fishing holes and fish.

Also at 10 years of age I learned to shoot and how to properly care for and treat firearms.

If I wanted to swim there were at least half a dozen places I could go, no fences, no life guards, no need to ask permission we just went. btw, no one ever drowned. My kids had a pool but otherwise there was not many places they could have gone. My grandkids can't even think about swimming anywhere but in a properly supervised pool.

Ice skating in the winter on 6 different lakes, ranging is size from about 20 acres to about 150 acres, no permission needed - we just went. My kids had some exposure to that on a pond of about 3/4 acres.

If we wanted a ball game we got as many kids together as we could find and chose up sides - the two best players (and everybody knew who they were) did the choosing and the teams which might have from 5 to 8 players on a side would be pretty evenly matched. No umpires, no parents to make fools of themselves, mended broken wooden bats, taped up balls, half the kids had gloves and shared with those who didn't. We kept score but 5 minutes after the game ended no body cared who won, we had fun.
In the fall it was the same with football, if we were playing where the grass was soft we played tackle at the school the field was rocky with a lot of stones so we played touch there. No helmets, no padding, no referees, no parents to make fools out of themselves - no kick off tees, no goal posts, no extra points, and again we kept score but nobody really cared who won. Same method of choosing sides.

Compare that to now and tell me kids are free - they can't make a move without adult supervision right there along with all of the latest and greatest equipment, coaches, umpires and properly laid out and measured fields.

My kids could choose up sides for kickball only because we owned 14 acres of land and could let them mark off a spot to play. But, there were very few opportunities for pick-up fun games.

We started school when we were 6 years old (or close to it) and most of us went no more than 12 years (when I graduated about 25% went to college - mostly on their own nickel without a lot of financial help from their parents) and learned enough so we could get a job when we finished. Our parents were happy when we graduated because we'd now be able to help out for a few years until we "got married and settled down". At 17 I was contributing more to the household than it cost for found and services received. We were free, if we wanted to (and a few did) we could leave home, get a job and go back only when we felt like it. Now half the kids start "preschool" at 4 kindergarten at 5 then go to college for 4 or more years after high school and 1/3 are still at least partly dependent on their parents when they're 30. People dependent on their parents (or the government for that matter are not free).

If I am to be frank, I am so glad I was born 75 years ago rather than 75 days ago. I shudder to think of what it will be like for the poor kids being born now - I fear they'll never have a childhood.
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Leroy
You are spot on. I remember playing Cowboy and Indians and shooting each other with out fake guns (Tree branches). Today if a kid points his finger like a gun they are kicked out of school and maybe arrested. Too much government not enough common sense. Glad I grew up in the 50's and 60's.

Alan
 
My dad bought me my first rifle for my 8th birthday. I've had guns (and bows) my whole life. I shot competitively in both archery and rifle competitions through the years.

My brother and I and two neighbor kids used to hike in the foothills of the rockies when I was in Jr Hi and the oldest of the group. We never got lost, hurt, or molested by anyone or anything. (Although we did once bring home an orphaned bobcat kitten.)

We rarely locked our doors in house or car. My brother and I would take off on our horses early on a summer morning, with a picnic lunch, and not come back until dark (horses don't have headlights.) But you couldn't get lost...a horse can always find his feed box. The only time our parents worried was when one of the horses came home without us.

Ours was a simpler time in a rural area. Now I live in a city, and my kids and grandkids can't safely do the wonderfully free things we did as children. My doors are always locked and alarmed, I carry pepper spray in my purse, and am trained in self defense. I still have my guns, but seldom shoot anymore because the recoil hurts my arthritis. Mostly just the 22's now. No more trap shooting! No more archery! It's hell getting old.

Sharon
 
sbwertz said:
My dad bought me my first rifle for my 8th birthday. I've had guns (and bows) my whole life. I shot competitively in both archery and rifle competitions through the years.

My brother and I and two neighbor kids used to hike in the foothills of the rockies when I was in Jr Hi and the oldest of the group. We never got lost, hurt, or molested by anyone or anything. (Although we did once bring home an orphaned bobcat kitten.)

We rarely locked our doors in house or car. My brother and I would take off on our horses early on a summer morning, with a picnic lunch, and not come back until dark (horses don't have headlights.) But you couldn't get lost...a horse can always find his feed box. The only time our parents worried was when one of the horses came home without us.

Ours was a simpler time in a rural area. Now I live in a city, and my kids and grandkids can't safely do the wonderfully free things we did as children. My doors are always locked and alarmed, I carry pepper spray in my purse, and am trained in self defense. I still have my guns, but seldom shoot anymore because the recoil hurts my arthritis. Mostly just the 22's now. No more trap shooting! No more archery! It's hell getting old.

Sharon
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It's also the little things...a kid calls someone a blockhead and gets called on the carpet and maybe suspended for "verbal abuse" --j we said "sticks and stones might break my bones but names will never hurt me". We played mumble-d-peg with our pocket knives (and every boy above 5th grade had a scout knife) during recess...now they talk about putting them in jail if they find a nail clipper in their back pack....
 
Those were the good old times. I remember riding my bike 5 miles to see my best friend with a BB rifle strapped across the handle bars, I dare you to do that now.
 
it was only 30 years ago that I was riding my bike (without a helmet, I have the scar to prove it) and would be all over town. The mall was 10 miles and that wasn't too far. Our parents never worried about us doing it (at least not enough to say anything if they were).
 
Mom would wrap a couple of sandwiches in waxed paper,put them in a poke and we would be gone all day. If we got thirsty we would stop at any house and ask for water.
We usually got kool aid or lemonade. Complete strangers. Try that now!
Ah,the good old days. A helmet was what the army wore.

Paul
 
Raised in Tampa I played pick up baseball with the likes of Lou Pinella ,& Al Lopez Jr., would leave the house at 7AM go to McFarland Park in West Tampa, play a game or two, then hop on or bikes stop at one of our houses and all eat lunch (someones mother would always make sandwiches) then take off to Lake Mary to swim. Not once did an adult stand on the sidelines or go with us swimming. By the time I was 16 and had my first car, a 1936 Ford 2 door sedan which I paid forty dollars for I would pick up my best friend go to Ybor city be gone all day and the only thing we were told is to be home for dinner. We all said yes Mam and yes Sir.
Todays child has no idea what real freedom is .
 
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I was born in 72. but the picture above is exactly how we rolled. I lived in the country and had horses and cows ( a very small ranch) I remember building jumps and putting cinder blocks behind it to mark who jumped the furthest. Heck was the day someone went before you and made it further.

I remember riding go carts and dirt bikes on our gravel road (paved in 85) and riding our bikes in the crop fields. Fishing in the big ditch for cat fish with hot dogs. Every parent knew every kid, and if you did something wrong you got your butt whipped by what ever parent, and then again when you got home.

When I turned 16 and got my first truck, I never locked it, and the keys were always in it. I picked up hay for a quarter a bail, and worked at a parts store too, along with school.

I remember Dad and I dove hunting on our back porch in our whitie tighties.

The one thing that gets me now, is if we were mad at someone and had a beef with them, we met after school and fixed it, you may get your butt whooped by him, or him by you, but you were both at school the next day. We took care of our problems with our fists not guns..
 
Smitty..

The sad thing is that our schools and government teach the kids...

They can get anything they want free, it is owed to them.

They are not responsible for anything, it is somebody else's fault.

They will protected and given what ever they need for all their lives, but forget about that freedom or individual rights stuff, that went out years ago.
 
George417 said:
Those were the good old times. I remember riding my bike 5 miles to see my best friend with a BB rifle strapped across the handle bars, I dare you to do that now.
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I lived in Freestone County Texas in my early teens.. I usually had a .22 rifle strapped across the handlebars and rode 7 or 8 miles out to my best friends house (I lived in town and he was out in the country) to shoot, swim or just hang out.

I left home at 17 (- my parents were separated and I lived with my dad and grandmother) because my dad and grandmother moved 13 miles closer to his job in another town... I didn't want to finish school in that town, so stayed in my hometown with a friend of the family... she had her house split into two apartments and I rented from her and worked at the local movie house to make ends meet... when I moved out, my dad said I was on my own... I've gone home to visit, but have not lived in either parent's house since the age of 17.
 
I was born in 76, and the school I went to in Upstate NY was k-12. The road we lived on split the North from the South hunting season. South came in a week or two earlier than the North. That Friday when the South came in our school was off, they used it as a teacher work day because most of the guys always skipped that day to go hunting (or prepare for the weekend hunt). Our town did not have a convention center of any type so the yearly hunt show was held in the school gym. The guys that drove to school generally had a rifle in the vehicle, I never knew anyone who was shot up there (except self inflicted) from a fight or accidently hunting. Go figure.
 
When I was a kid, all the cartoons and tv shows had moral messages built in at the end. There was no swearing on TV - and violence was simulated and fake - now I have to turn away if it's rated anything over pg14...like 14 year olds should be watching that. I think the slippery slope of what kids see on TV (and now what they can freely access on the internet without their parents knowing), results in declining moral standards. Even cell-phones mean that calls no longer have to be vetted through the parents...kids are less accountable about who they're hanging out with as a result.

SO get rid of your kids cellphones (and yours), play outside, encourage your neighbours to do the same, and stop chasing the buck and the newest techno fad...

Simple life = simple problems! techno-centered life = turmoil. :smile:
 
There was a lot of good in them old days. Sand lot games, riding bikes with no helmets, being gone all day. Just be home in time for dinner. No locked doors. Fist fights and very few of those.
 
edicehouse said:
I was born in 76, and the school I went to in Upstate NY was k-12. The road we lived on split the North from the South hunting season. South came in a week or two earlier than the North. That Friday when the South came in our school was off, they used it as a teacher work day because most of the guys always skipped that day to go hunting (or prepare for the weekend hunt). Our town did not have a convention center of any type so the yearly hunt show was held in the school gym. The guys that drove to school generally had a rifle in the vehicle, I never knew anyone who was shot up there (except self inflicted) from a fight or accidently hunting. Go figure.
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I'll bet they don't now. I lived in the southern zone in upstate NY at that time we could do a lot of things then they can't do now (Our daughter is not the high school principal where our kids went to school)
 
We kind of talked about this before

I had a 22 rifle before I could drive. Went hunting ground hogs and gophers at the Mississippi Levee. We used to get 50 cent bounty for their ears. The gophers and ground hogs would(probably still do) dig holes in levee which could cause the levee to leak and break.

In the six years that I went to the high school and jr High, only one student died. and that was from drowning while swimming in the river. Last I heard they have 2-3 die a year from drugs alone.
 
People are only free if they fight for it. If they do not then there is none for them. Reliance upon others to give them that luxury has been the downfall of human society throughout history.

Respect is earned by deed of action. What have you done to earn respect and freedom today?
 
losing freedom

We give up our freedom an inch at a time. A little more regulation here, a little more there and in time we become the most highly regulated Western nation in the world. When we consider local, state and federal regulation there is virtually no aspect of our lives which are not regulated. We are so regulated that it is impossible for anyone to know how much regulation we have just in our personal lives.

A quick example is our children. If you have children who have not yet reached adulthood, just think on how much direction (with the force of law) you are getting from government on what you MUST do and what you MAY NOT do regarding the care and upbringing you provide.

Another would be - build a house and check the hoops you have to jump through. I did it with a small cabin on piers in the late '90s and had to meet "code" on the septic system, the diameter and depth of the piers, the size of the main beams, the size and maximum length of the floor joists, the pitch and strength of the roof, the depth of the insulation, the size of the studs, the number and placement of electrical outlets, and I'm sure I've missed some. In short, I was regulated on everything about that house .... and it was regulated as to whether I could even build it on the property, I had to check that before I bought the lot.
 
Scruffy said:
I had a 22 rifle before I could drive. Went hunting ground hogs and gophers at the Mississippi Levee. We used to get 50 cent bounty for their ears. .
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When I was about 14 the farmers convinced the county to put a bounty on coyotes because they were killing lambs and chickens.

Two years later, we were up to our elbows in rabbits. I can remember looking out the window at the sugarbeet field across the road and it was alive with rabbits. The farmers were being eaten out of house and home.

So they put a bounty on rabbits! I supported my horse one whole summer by hunting rabbits. We got ten cents for a pair of ears...cottontails or jacks. But there was a glove factory in town that would pay 25 cents for blacktailed jackrabbits to make linings for gloves. (Of course, back then hay was only $11 a ton!)

I babysat for 35 cents an hour, and every summer I would gentle-break three two-year-old shetland/quarter horse-cross ponies for $50 each. I never had an allowance, but that $150 lasted me the whole year, even paying for feed and vet bills for my horse.


I joined the Women's Army Corps when I was 18 and never lived at home again. I went to college on the GI bill. (Neither of my children, now aged 50 and 48, ever lived at home after college, either)
 
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sbwertz said:
(Neither of my children, now aged 50 and 48, ever lived at home after college, either)
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One of my daughters lived with us for about 3 months after she got her degree - but she got sharply reminded that "dad's house, dad's rules" still applied (she was working until midnight and took to getting home when Mom was leaving for work at 7:30am). She decided to move out.
 
Smitty37 said:
avbill said:
I didn't get my own BS degree until I was 44 years old and it took me 16 years.
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You and me both. I started at 18 and continued off and on, between military service, making a living and finally finished off at 42. 7 years of formal education and I was the only one from my H. S. to obtain a degree/s. Also, my wife got her degree at 38.

If, today, one does not have a master's degree, advancement will be difficult. BS degrees are perhaps what a 12 yr HS education was 50 years ago.

Ditto on the hunting/fishing. Here in Oregon, one cannot fish with live bait except for wigglies. I finally quit fishing and building custom rods. No longer fun. Different kind of fishing here. I'm used to the midwest.

I agree on today's youth sports. My grandson (12 yrs old) is currently playing Football and some parents just simply "get in the way" of kids learning how to properly and safely play the sport.

As always, just IMHO.
Russ
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As far as freedom goes, I remember my grad History teacher saying that, we are willing to "put a cop on every corner and pass more laws to protect our freedoms." That was a lonb time ago, but a pretty real quote.
 
I was born in '84 and even from then to now there are tons of things that have changed. Bikes with no helmets, gone all day with nothing more than a general idea of where you were going to be. If you were going to Tommy's house you made sure mom had the number and make sure if she needed to call you were there or Tommy's mom knew where you had went. Never had a gun myself but carried a knife from the time I was 4. Video games and TV were for days when it was too rainy (and that meant severe thunderstorms) to be outside.

I actually managed to get my self kicked out of one of my college classes that dealt with bullying problems because I said the reason the bullying epidemic has gotten so out of control and suicide rates are soaring is because we are raising a generation of sissies. We are teaching all these kids not to fight back and to tell an adult (who typically can't do anything about it). I was raised by a simple philosophy, "Don't you ever throw the first punch but by god you better throw the last one."

We learned basic first aid because if there was no bone showing and no immediate swelling there was no reason to let an adult know. Every pick up sport we played had the same rules: The two best kids pick the teams and no blood means no foul.

I catch a LOT of flak from people because I REFUSE to treat my 2 year old daughter with gloved hands. She falls and gets hurt, she comes over and says boo boo we say it will be okay and she is off and running again. If she chooses not to listen when asked to do something she gets told to do it, if she still refuses to do it she get a swat on the butt.
I have technology in my house but on the weekend it gets shut off and we spend the weekend outside playing. As a result my two year old has no desire to be sitting and watching TV. She is either sitting with us reading a book, playing with action figures in her room (okay so they are actually zoo animals but same concept), or playing with the dogs outside. She helps me tend fires on the nice nights outside and knows the fire will hurt so she brings me things to put in the fire.

I for one refuse to let the simpler times die because others can't be responsible for their own actions.
 
AGREED! Boy do I feel old now (and missing my younger days) I have 5 stepkids from 27-18 years old and all but one are still in the house (wife wont let me raise the rent from the current 0$ to something slightly higher than the current prevailing cost of getting your own place). And the little beggers have the nerve to complain when something isn't to their liking. I am stuck trying to teach my 7 and 9 year old the values and morals of my time (I am 44) and they are continually influenced by the older ones that refuse to grow up and start making their own way.
 
I rode my bicycle all over south Ga. Never had to worry about perverts taking the kids, great family shows on TV, no sex, or filthy language. All shows had a good moral to the story, A shame what we have to do now to protect our children from the horrors of TV and the perverts. I don't let my daughter ride her bicycle down the street out of my view. But we can't shield them from everthing. A lot has changed since I was raised in the 50's and 60's.
 
My kids all went away to college and never came home. Five kids, the oldest turned 30 two days ago. We talk about it sometimes at work. I tell them that in my house it was a case of setting expectations. I don't believe that's done much anymore. I see too much, 'it's soo hard out there so let me help you.' Instead of you need a plan. Ill support your decisions but you're responsible for your plan and its success or failure. Once you have a plan, if there's a way I can provide something specific. Then you can make a very specific request.

Instead, parents keep rescuing their children from 'problems' they perceive exist. Oh, it must be hard to go to class and find a job to cover a car payment. You can use the extra car.
 
I was born in '86. My father was a logger. We lived for five years off of the grid out in the woods. We lived in a old school bus that my Father converted into a motor home. My parents home schooled me and my brothers. Today I feel as if I was fortunate that my mother and father home schooled me. My father logged from Maine to Virginia. We would park our bus out in the woods where my Father worked. I remember always playing out in the woods, and playing and Fishing in creeks. We never bothered getting any fishing licenses or anything like that. For five years we lived out in the woods, and off the grid.

Today I look back.... and I often feel that we were more free living a life like this.
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I am 17. I grew up with out any real tv until I was ten or so. I grew up playing kick ball and wall ball outside with my siblings. No parents unless we broke a window. Latter my sister joined softball and We the younger siblings would play football. Same rules as you discribed. Capture the flag was common as well.
I didn't go to preschool. I will be done with school this year. That's 11 years. ( junior senior in one year). College is payed for mostly by me or scholarships. Comeong home afterwards an living there isn't an option. Wouldn't if It was. That freedoms is still acheive able to this day.
 
Some add ons. We rode are bikes around to sonic or the gas station or even the middle school near my house. Be gone for hours and all we had to do is ask if it was ok. Never said no unless it was close to dark. They never worried. I spent most of my younger days playing in my neighbor hood playing with the neighbor and my siblings. Run up and down different alleys. We be outside all day when we wanted water we get it from a hose. Played basketball late a night with a light. Even played with random kids. Parents weren't worried. Sometimes we would run around the neighborhood with bb guns. Played air soft using the hole street and neighbors yards without asking. No one. ever cared as long as we never broke any thing. Remember I am only 17. A lot as changed.
 
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I am 72. I have a son with a grand daugther.

Three nieces and one nephew with 6 children between them.

Of that entire group, none of them express any need to save or be concerned about the future. All those working hold their employers and being responsible for their station in life. Those that work for the state don't belive they have to deliver any value, just warm seats. It is somebody else's fault they can't have what they want or if they have to provide for their own needs.

I think they represent what the country has to look forward to for a long time. And I think some one has put the beacon on the hill out.
 
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